Warriors put Rockets away with second-half burst in Game 1

HOUSTON — Day after day, from opening night in Oakland onward, the anticipation raged on, a fire building toward an inferno. The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets, the defending champion and its most legitimate threat — a tantalizing matchup featuring enough star wattage to power a city. Their collision seemed fated, inevitable, a playoff series that would define the postseason.

After so many months, the title contenders delivered a performance worthy of even the most outsized expectations Monday night at a pulsing Toyota Center packed with leather-lunged fans yelling themselves hoarse and in-house music that thumped like a Las Vegas nightclub.

The Warriors absorbed many blows from the Rockets in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, but as they so often do, Golden State used a second-half burst to pull away. The result: a 119-106 victory that swipes home-court advantage from a team that has spent much of the season priming for this matchup.

“We come into this series, we don’t post stuff on the wall saying [the Rockets